


Paradox

by BlameMyMuses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 03:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6178981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some destinies are inescapable. Some are of our own making. Some begin with a single wrong step--or a right one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradox

When Harry Potter was nine years old, he fell through a hole in Time. 

 

When Harry Potter was nine years old, he did not fall through a hole in Time.

 

Paradox. 

 

When he was ten years old, he had made a home for himself, his magic stepping in to help him, make him inconspicuous. It did little to hide the fact that he was  _ different _ , but it made people forget. Made them not realize he hadn’t always been there. He became someone else.

 

When Harry was ten years old, he lived in a cupboard, and had no home. His magic stepped in occasionally, to protect him from injury or trouble. It did nothing to hide the fact that he was  _ different _ , and it made people shy away from him, hate him, fear him. He became himself.

  
Contradiction.

 

When he was almost eleven, he received his Hogwarts letter, and everything began to make sense.

 

When he was almost eleven, he received his Hogwarts letter, and everything began to fall apart.

 

Incongruity.

 

Better be...SLYTHERIN! said the hat. And so he was.   
  


Not Slytherin! Not Slytherin! said Harry. So he wasn’t.

 

Inconsistency. 

 

In his second year, he began to find friends, began to make plans, have goals. There were those who hated him, but he was clever and resourceful, and those traits were useful, so he used them. He used everyone.

 

In his second year, he began to make enemies, began to feel terror, understand betrayal. There were those who stood by him, but he was a parselmouth and a Gryffindor, and those traits did not go together, so people began to fear him. He began to grow angry.

 

Opposition.

 

In his fifth year, a girl died. He knew just who to blame.

 

In his fifth year, his godfather died. He blamed himself.

 

Dissension.

 

He came to learn of a certain prophecy. From that day forward, it ruled his life.

 

He came to learn of a certain prophecy. From that day forward, it ruined his life.

 

Discrepancy. 

 

It was a Halloween night, when he killed James and Lily Potter. Some small part of him, buried deep and mostly forgotten, might have protested. He ignored it.  _ I am Lord Voldemort _ , he told himself, as he turned towards the crib. Some prophecies are self-fulfilling.

 

It was Halloween the first time Harry Potter destroyed himself. What happens to a soul, when it turns its wand against itself? He was barely one, and knew nothing of souls or space/time or paradox, but something in him clung to that broken shard as his other self withered to nothingness. Some prophecies are unavoidable.

 

Conflict.

 

The last time he faced himself, he had no idea. He did not remember that small boy, just nine years old, waking up in a London fifty years in his own past, just remembered the fabrication, the lies, the deceit. He’d given away the part of him that remembered, left it in his younger self those many Halloweens ago. He didn’t know. But he feared.

 

The last time he destroyed himself, Harry knew, just a little, what it meant. What he was about to do. He almost remembered what it was like to be alone and afraid. He was afraid, as he walked towards himself, but he was not alone. His family was with him. He had a small seed of unearned memories burning in his forehead, given to him so many years ago to protect. He almost knew. He feared, too.

 

Accord.

 

Harry Potter killed him that night.

 

He killed Lord Voldemort that night.

 

Paradox, again.

 

Neither can live while the other survives. It drove him mad.

 

I open at the close. It set him free.

 


End file.
